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Just recently my son, Grayson, came home for a one-month visit; he works as an educator in Madrid. Since we have only one car, he paid for a rental so he could socialize with his friends during his stay. Public transportation in this area is poorly implemented.

Well, he took advantage of one of those Priceline deals, yes the same Priceline that actor William Shatner hawks on TV and radio, and got a compact car, a Mazda3, for the same price as a lesser vehicle. While the car was perfect for his needs, my wife remarked, after riding in it briefly, that the air conditioner didn’t seem up to the task of handling those 100-plus temperatures in the Phoenix area, although Grayson, not having an air conditioner in his own apartment in Spain, didn’t seem to notice. In passing, I also took a ride, and confirmed that it was near impossible to get the car’s interior temperature down to my comfort level.

Grayson replaced the car, not for the quality of the air conditioning, but as the result of a curious thump that appeared to emanate from the real axle. The noise was gone, but the air conditioner still seemed sub-par. So I examined the reviews for the Mazda3, just to see if any of the critics mentioned the poor-qualty air conditioning.